Recent reviews by ThePaSch

The amount of upselling and constant pestering for their largely pointless premium offering is absolutely ridiculous. This used to be a decent little tool but now it's become enshittified beyond recognition. Steer clear unless you want to be bombarded with ads and badgered every five seconds to subscribe to their useless crap.

Even in an industry mired with terrible launches, this game's launch is a new low. The game itself is fun, but Starbreeze has been unable to actually make it available for play with an uptime that's reaching less than 50% from the game's launch, with complete infrastructure shutdowns well into the game's second day of availability.

Once more, Starbreeze shows itself to be a shockingly incompetent company; but due to their inane insistence on jumping on yet another industry trend way too late and way too ineptly (in the form of offering a GaaS), the game itself is now affected - the company's sole saving grace from an, at this point, well-deserved downfall - rather than just the company's financials after its past utterly bungled trend-chasing efforts (such as StarVR, the complete failure of an engine dubbed "Valhalla", OVK's The Walking Dead, and whatever that WW2 shooter was supposed to be).

It's time for Starbreeze to sell off the PAYDAY franchise and let an actually competent company take over, because leaving it in their hands is feeding pearls to swine.

The US-centricism pointed out in other reviews is really not as big of a problem as it's made out to be outside of a few certain episodes, which can easily be skipped. There's enough content here for everyone, including non-US players.

That said, this is, by far, the best YDKJ game you're likely to ever play - the passion and attention to detail that went into this title just oozes out of its every pore, the episode themes are wacky and the questions even wackier (without turning into complete guesswork), the ever-changing hosting duties keep things fresh and varied, and the changes to the core gameplay almost exclusively land - picking your own question value means no game is ever truly out of reach if you squint hard enough, there's not a single question type that fails to impress (including the best YDKJ question type of all eternity - JACK Bingo) - and this may be the only trivia party game ever to have an actual, ongoing plot (though don't expect _too_ much - it largely keeps itself in the background until the "finale").

The one thing you'll find is that some of the references are... well, a bit dated. This game was released in 1998 - go figure!

All in all, a blast from the past that's well worth the money.

And if you think otherwise, well... you know how this sentence ends!

I received my copy of the game for free, though I still plan on gifting it to at least one of my friends - once it's been patched.

I think the greatest problem that Serious Sam 4 has is that it doesn't distance itself from Serious Sam 3 in its art style. Gameplay-wise, SS4 really feels distinct and brings a couple of new fun mechanics and gadgets into its gameplay that manage to complement the old-school FPS action goodiness. Playing the first level of SS3 and SS4 are two entirely distinct experiences. No longer do we have to deal with hitscan zombies across tight, labyrinthine corridors - SS4 knows that Serious Sam works best in an open environment with tons of dudes to murder, so that's what it serves the player the moment it picks up some speed.

Unfortunately, the game is marred by tech issues. DX12 and Vulkan seem highly prone to clownvomit textures, the framerate is highly inconsistent even on top-of-the-line hardware, and there are texture filtering/clipping/flickering glitches that can get really disruptive. It feels to me like this game could've very much used an additional month or two in the oven to really give it the polish it deserves - for now, I'd recommend waiting for a patch, which I know for a fact Croteam are hard-at-work for, before you purchase this at full price. But once the tech issues are ironed out - and, again, I know for a fact that they will eventually - I feel this game really has the potential a highly enjoyable successor to a game that was ultimately not what SS fans were looking for in SS3. I haven't played too much yet - waiting for that patch - but what I've played so far surpasses SS3 in so many regards.

This game unfortunately suffers from Croteam's troubled Incubator investment, which unfortunately didn't seem to pay off all that well and apparently caused them to have to release ASAP in order to ensure the studio's financial well-being. This is, of course, not a good look, but the game itself is, indeed, really fun. Once Croteam have had a chance to patch the issues it still comes with, it'll be a worthwhile purchase.

I really wanted to like this game; I gave it a fair shot, and I was one of the backers before it was even released.

The problem is that absolutely nothing is done with the immensely intriguing premise. You get to make absolutely zero choices on your own most of the time; the few times I got to actually decide for myself, any decision that doesn't align with the institution you're working for immediately results in a non-standard game over. You spend most of your time playing an elaborate version of Papers, Please, where crucial mistakes that would logically result in a high-threat suspect escaping are just brushed over, you're penalized in score, and someone else checked your decisions and found that you were wrong, making me wonder why I'm even needed if someone else is going to do my job anyway.

You're constantly railroaded into conversations with no choice on your part on how they progress or where they end up. You have no choice in who to work with; if you refuse to work with someone for too long, they rat you out and you go game over. The story progresses with no input on your part, if you don't count one or two inconsequential lines of dialogue being different.

The developers of this game had a golden opportunity with the subject material the game deals with, and they seemingly chose to do absolutely nothing with it. If you enjoy seeping through very limited amounts of data, stick to rules religiously, and having no influence on events in the story whatsoever, while (falsely) being told you're a big difference-maker, bossed around and punished with a slap on the wrist at worst for crucial mistakes, then I guess I can recommend this game - for me, I'm done wasting my time waiting for the game to get interesting. Maybe it does later down the line, but five hours in, my patience has been lost.

Absolutely amazing game - the true successor to RollerCoaster Tycoon 3! The design and scenery options are pretty magnificent - though there *is* a lack of scenery items for certain design themes, I hope this will be addressed via patches and/or DLC. As far as coaster creation and park design goes, this game takes the crown!

Tycoon fans beware, though - the management aspect isn't fleshed out at all and feels token. The broad strokes are there - staff, research, prices, ad campaigns - but it's not intuitive whatsoever, heavily relying on micromanagement that ultimately doesn't make much of a difference anyway. If you're in this for the economic simulation, you are better off with Parkitect.

Gameplay-wise, it's everything I'd hoped it to be. It's a magnificent Hitman experience, rich in atmosphere and variation, with insane replay value. The gameplay is crisp and smooth, the graphics are gorgeous, there are dozens of ways to take down your targets, and things like challenges, contracts, escalations and (soon) Elusive Targets add *tremendously* to the experience and sheer replayability. You basically never run out of things to do! It's a true Hitman experience. There may only be one map right now, but I've clocked 9 hours so far and will likely be playing a lot more in the coming days. After the disappointment that was Absolution, the new Hitman is a brilliant return to form and has me loving every second of playing it with glee. If you are a fan of the Hitman series - and of Blood Money in particular - then I definitely think this game will be right up your alley.

Overkill has removed all microtransactions, overhauled weapon balance, introduced many features they originally promised and continue pushing free content for everyone. I'm very happy to change my review from Negative to Positive after last year's Crimefest debacle!

TL;DR
CONS

• Unfitting and repetitive soundtrack
  
• Lifeless environments
  
• Several tedious puzzles
  
• Noninteractive and lifeless environments
  
• Hit-or-miss voice acting

PROS

• Beautiful art design
  
• Attention to detail
  
• Several clever puzzles
  
• Story- and narrative-driven
  
• Free

I'd recommend this mod; however, not without a few major gripes that inhibit enjoyment.

The environment design is pretty great; however, especially in the beginning sections, it all feels incredibly empty and dead. One does wonder why they'd put so much work into detailing all these environments with their side-rooms and branching paths, only to have no interaction to speak of or no incentive to explore any of it.

Plus, there was a LOT of walking around and riding various trains/elevators while listening to dialogue that is too short and, thus, leaves you just standing there and staring into the aether while being very slowly moved to your destination in silence. This mod has a serious case of sightseeing syndrome.

Once the puzzles do begin, it starts kicking it up quite nicely. The music is waaaay too prominent for my taste, though; the original game only had upbeat and "present" music during transitional and story parts for a reason. The music in the chambers was kept atmospheric and in the background, which is something that this mod doesn't seem to be doing at all. The loops are quite noticable, and the music gets repetitive very quickly.

All in all, solid effort. Props to the creators of the mod, but it's definitely noticable that this is the work of amateurs - as in the sense of "non-professionals", not in the sense of "beginners" or "inexperienced people". There has obviously been a lot of quality work put into this, but as a whole, there are glaring issues that, while not game-breaking or lessening enjoyment by any stretch, do detract from the polish of the whole thing.